Category: Flash Fiction

She finds a repair shop, but the repair guy is dead. So, she gets a screwdriver, loosens the screws and screws them back on. She doesn’t know what type of battery to use. Learned helplessness is killing her slowly.

4 years earlier…

“We have been informed that Arnold Cramp has been elected as the new president. His first decree is that anybody who looks Arab is to be shot on sight. Those who have Arab blood in them will be hunted down as well. All Muslims shall be bombed on sight.”

Lorka turned off the TV, grabbed her suit jacket and left for work. She lived at the Fraternal twin towers – that’s what they were called after Cramp rebuilt them.

There was no traffic, and she could see from the bus window that hundreds of cars were being towed away. Ambulances were parked in front of buildings, loading dead bodies.

Lorka was expecting to get shot…

She worked at one of Cramp’s major companies: The Main Cramp Company.

Cramp spent most of his time in the lobby, going up and down the glittery escalator, waving at his employees who waved back. This happened every five minutes or so, whenever he felt like taking a fun ride.

Lorka reached the company, got off the bus and heard a faint shot. She turned around to find an agent standing near the window of a dead driver.

She kept walking until she reached the main entrance where she had to pass a card over an electric key system. Her name appeared on the screen: Lorka Bekdach… Welcome back but don’t get too comfortable.

It was a regular day at work. At lunch break, she went to the cafeteria and had Scallops and Sushi. She ate for free, like always, because she was a valuable employee. Her job was to spit on her hand and readjust Cramp’s hair whenever it looked disheveled. She got paid $5000 a month to do that, and her spit and hand were both insured for $500,000. When she sat at the table, the afternoon news was on the air:

“All Arabs and Arab look-alikes have been eliminated successfully. However, the bombing of Muslims on sight resulted in billions of non-Muslim casualties. We have also been informed that the decree was a worldwide one. China is now barely populated, so the government issued a new law: each family has to have at least 10 children. Meanwhile, the entire world declared war on Cramp. The Apocalypse has begun.”

Then, the news anchor was dramatically shot with a shotgun, her brains splattering on the screen. A message appeared after the screen went black: No thanks to you, MOBAWA.

Lorka finished her meal and headed to the ladies room. As she washed her hands, she started wondering why she hadn’t been shot yet. She went to her office and dialed the extension to Cramp’s office. Naturally, the secretary didn’t answer, since she was shot. So Cramp had to answer his secretary’s phone:

“Cramp’s office, how may I help you?”

“Mr. Cramp, I need to have a word with you about your decree.”

“Ah yes, come up. My hair is not looking good.”

Lorka entered his office and walked over to his desk. First, she spat on her hand and fixed his hair. Then, she sat on the chair that faced his desk.

“Mr. Cramp, how come I haven’t been shot yet?”

“I can’t shoot someone who puts so much spit into fixing my hair. You are a valuable life. Nobody wants your job.”

“Oh, ok.”

His head suddenly fell on the table, blood dripped into an expanding pool of blood. She spat one last time on her hand, and pushed the hair off his face and went back home.

Back to Now…

Lorka finds a dead, half-decomposed body near the entrance of her apartment. The dead man has a pistol in his right hand. She takes the pistol and shoots herself.

She looks at the jukebox and wonders which song would best reflect the spark she lit and lived along its flickering lights all by her own. If you asked her if she was fluent in the languages she spoke, she would say: “I am fluent enough to keep things ambiguous until the time passes. I know how to spell out the words but I lack the ability to express them in an immediate fashion.”

If you ask her if she ever loved, she would say: “Yes, but I loved in silence. Perhaps it’s better this way, or perhaps I need someone to slap this bullshit out of me.”

She looks at the jukebox and wonders if there is a song that she can sing along with. The songs are familiar yet the words are as distant as her need for a life where the absolute is the will to power and the imaginary is a constant need for disappearance. She could tell you that she’s the one you’ve been looking for in all of the wrong ways, that life is as difficult as she lets it be, but she would be lying. God, would she be lying.

She finds a song she doesn’t know and for the first time ever, she sings along, knowing all of the words she’s never heard before. Her breath smells of stale cigarettes and beer. Yet, she steps in front of the five people present at the bar at 2p.m. and sings to their faces the stories she’s never been through. She’s high on life or perhaps it is death, who knows? The lights are not strong enough for her to be sure about what it is that she is standing in front of – a proposition or supposition of something that never was. She ruined the flow of words when she started thinking about what she was supposed to be naturally belting out. There are words she chokes on, words about love and loss that she still hasn’t made peace with. The people ask her to sit down and have a few glasses of water. The water tastes like whiskey and the next thing she knows, it is in fact whiskey.

A guy approaches her: “What’s your story?”

“I just wanted to speak out before my light completely caved in. But it’s getting dark now. Where do we go to escape it?”